Carrying on my father's passion for food, life and sharing with others. My vision is a bit different than my dad's, but we are cut from the same cloth. It's all about being excited about life, the crazy turns it takes and being curious about what lies right around the corner.

Friday, January 1, 2010

Lots of wintry weather here in Baltimore lately and Stella has been off from school. We have gone to the movies, played with new toys, baked cookies, but we were still bored. We were watching TV one day and saw a show where they were making homemade goat cheese and we decided we wanted to give that a try!

The process is pretty easy and it was a lot of fun and definitely something different to do on a cold snowy day. So we went to the store and bought a quart of goat's milk and brought it home and got busy. Here are the steps:

First you heat the milk slowly to a temp of 180 degrees. Once the milk is at that temp that is when you add a curdling agent of your choice. We had lemons and unfiltered organic apple cider vinegar and we used a little of both. To the heated milk we added the juice of 2 lemons and about 3 T. of the ACV. Once you add the curdling agents you should instantly see the milk separate into curds and whey. Keep the heat on during this process. At this point you should have ready a fine weave cheesecloth or an old linen dish towel lined in a large bowl. Next, gently ladle the curds and whey ladle by ladle into the linen/cheesecloth lined bowl. Once it's all in gently bring up the 4 corners of the cloth gathering all the curds in the cloth leaving the whey behind in the bowl. Hold the "ball" of curds in the cloth over the bowl and tie the top in a knot or with a tie of some sort. Then tie this to a large wooden spoon and hang the ball over the top of a large pot so that the ball of curds don't hit the bottom and can drain freely. Just leave it hanging for a couple of hours, more if you want a drier cheese. When it's time, unwrap your cheese and place it in a small bowl and add whatever fresh herbs you want. We had lemon thyme and rosemary from the garden so we finely chopped some and added it to the cheese along with some ground pepper and sea salt. The cheese will be a soft "farmer's cheese" consistency. Keep it in the fridge (it will last for about 2-3 days) and eat it as you would any other goat cheese.

I am amazed at how good our cheese turned out. You can really taste the apple cider vinegar and it adds a really nice flavor and tang to the cheese. I've been eating the cheese on little French Toastettes and can't get enough! It was fun to make and Stella loved doing it and it was a welcome and tasty departure from making cookies, cookies, cookies. I would highly recommend that you make some yourself using different herbs; experiment!!! Fun, fun, fun!

Happy New Year to Everyone! Sending the warmest wishes for health and happiness in the coming year!